Atrocious roads around the city

Elessar

Is anyone else despairing at the quality of the roads in the city? Many of them are really really bad, and not only make for an uncomfortable drive, but destroy the suspension on your car.

I'm talking streets like gardener street (literally large chunks of the street are missing and or subsided - in fact I don't think there is a smooth surface on it anywhere?) mayor street lower (I would have thought the IFSC area would be a priority for roads) ballybough road/summer hill parade/Portland row...there are countless others. I havent seen any road improvement in these areas, ever.

In fairness the Richmond road was done a few years back and that was really bad, but nothing else that I could see?

Do DCC even have a budget for road improvement...I would have thought main thoroughfares like gardener street would have been done a long time ago.

Does anyone know what TDs or city councillors I could contact about this to get some info on when or if these roads will be done?

odyssey06

The roads are atrocious, and getting worse

If there's a particular pothole \ broken ramp \ sunken shore that you can locate, you can log a ticket for it on the Dublin city council website:
http://www.dublincity.ie/main-menu-your-council/isupport

Gongoozler

Never mind you in your car, you wanna try do them on a bike!

The usual suspects are pretty much the whole of Dawson St, the junction of St Stephens Green North and Dawson St, the junction of Church Lane and Dame St, the top of Westmoreland St as you head for the bridge, turning from parnell St on to Parnell Square. Haven't been out in a few days so I'm sure I'll be able to come up with more later.

cgcsb

Gongoozler wrote: »

Never mind you in your car, you wanna try do them on a bike!

The usual suspects are pretty much the whole of Dawson St, the junction of St Stephens Green North and Dawson St, the junction of Church Lane and Dame St, the top of Westmoreland St as you head for the bridge, turning from parnell St on to Parnell Square. Haven't been out in a few days so I'm sure I'll be able to come up with more later.

you won't see any resurfacing around those areas until the luas is finished in 2018.

Ole Rodrigo

+1 - try it on a bicycle, whilst signaling a turn with one arm on the handlebars.


One other consequence of deteriorating roads is increasing numbers of SUVs, as more motorsists buy something to handle the bad terrain. SUVs, in large numbers at least, are not suitable in urban areas.

Better roads equals less SUVs.

senordingdong

The majority of what people are driving these days are not real suvs.

They are just cars like yours and mine, propped up a little and with a fancy shell to make it look like an suv.

cgcsb

What I'm more worried about in Dublin is aggressive driving, speeding, red light running and yellow box blocking by drivers who insist on swanning around Dublin City Centre in their car in the middle of rush hour without the vaguest consideration of alternative methods of transport. Something that can only be resolved by massive fines and camera enforcement.

But yes the roads are also horrific. Maybe stop speeding on roads with a wearing course designed for 50km/hr. Also try taking a Dublin bike across some patchwork of surfaces.

chopper6

senordingdong wrote: »

The majority of what people are driving these days are not real suvs.

They are just cars like yours and mine, propped up a little and with a fancy shell to make it look like an suv.

They're handy for when the primary school is on top of a mountain :pac:

Thud

most of the roads in the city are a bit of a patchwork from being dug up and patched over, never going to wear evenly and unlikely to ever be fixed in full and even if they are it's only until the decide to dig it up again for some other reason

Gloomtastic!

cgcsb wrote: »

What I'm more worried about in Dublin is aggressive driving, speeding, red light running and yellow box blocking by drivers who insist on swanning around Dublin City Centre in their car in the middle of rush hour without the vaguest consideration of alternative methods of transport. Something that can only be resolved by massive fines and camera enforcement.

Bloody culchies! :rolleyes:

nxbyveromdwjpg

From what the mobs have been roaring, most of our motor tax has been used to fund Irish Water.

Ole Rodrigo

Whatever about the necessity of roadworks, its the co-ordination and planning that strikes me as the real problem.

How many times has the same stretch been dug up, repatched and then dug up again ? I remember cycling through College Green about 2010/2011 with traffic chaos as it was being dug up and resurfaced. Now,a few years later its being dug up and ( presumably ) resurfaced again.

I'm guessing none of the agencies involved co-ordinate their plans with each other. One cable company needs to dig it up, but no framework exists to check if any other agency will need to in the near future. Perhaps we need a new Dept of Inter Agency Co-Ordination. It exists in Corporate Enterprise - the Project Management Office. It ensures one project doesn't overlap with another, resulting in extra delay and expenditure.

Rant over.

tfak85

Totally agree Ole_R, I believe that the companies are not obliged to provide mapping for where they might have laid certain pipes, wires etc to the council so when another company comes to do the next bit of work they have to just guess as to where to go, I think it was an ex DCC worker told me that a few years ago, it may not be fact.

As a cyclist in a city where drivers pay very little regard to anyone but themselves, the roads that resemble the surface of the moon are very scary to cycle on, despite being lit up like a Christmas tree and always wearing my helmet, the fear of hitting a massive pothole is real.

Ole Rodrigo

tfak85 wrote: »

Totally agree Ole_R, I believe that the companies are not obliged to provide mapping for where they might have laid certain pipes, wires etc to the council so when another company comes to do the next bit of work they have to just guess as to where to go, I think it was an ex DCC worker told me that a few years ago, it may not be fact.

As a cyclist in a city where drivers pay very little regard to anyone but themselves, the roads that resemble the surface of the moon are very scary to cycle on, despite being lit up like a Christmas tree and always wearing my helmet, the fear of hitting a massive pothole is real.

I'm convinced there is some such bureaucratic oddity at the root cause. Perhaps the same one the caused both Luas lines to remain separate !

The problem in the city center now is that everyone is out for themselves, and feeling justified in doing so. Pedestrians walk out without looking whilst chatting on their phones, without bothering to go a few extra feet to the pedestrian crossing and waiting. Cars go through reds at almost every junction. Buses and Taxis skim cyclists. Cyclists don't have proper lights for winter, many ignore red lights and are inconsiderate of cars.

No matter what direction you look there's shoddy standards. Pedestrians don't use traffic crossings because the programming is so out of sync. Cars stopped on a red while there's also a red for pedestrians on a busy thoroughfare. This makes no sense.

Its a mess, no matter what you vantage point. Every time you try and blame something, something other cause rears its head. Its as if someone at the controls of the city is drunk and is having a laugh.

AndonHandon

Baggot St is jagged like the terrain of hell, madness for what is such a busy street. It reflects the slowly rotting Georgian buildings which, bar a few of them, be ripped down and rebuilt to allow for residential buildings.

porsche959

cgcsb wrote: »

What I'm more worried about in Dublin is aggressive driving, speeding, red light running and yellow box blocking by drivers who insist on swanning around Dublin City Centre in their car in the middle of rush hour without the vaguest consideration of alternative methods of transport. Something that can only be resolved by massive fines and camera enforcement.

But yes the roads are also horrific. Maybe stop speeding on roads with a wearing course designed for 50km/hr. Also try taking a Dublin bike across some patchwork of surfaces.

Why does EVERYTHING have to be turned into an anti-motorcar rant with some?

Why can't we just agree that poorly maintained roads are s.hitty for both drivers and cyclists?